Breaking the writer's block a bit with this random thought about D&D Next design which I published on the D&D Next Facebook group, but that I wanted to make more "accessible" here.
It's a bit of worry, something of a promise made by designers that I'm not seeing in the playtest, or not enough: optional complexity.
As
of now I'm unsure that the design team remembers what was the
philosophy in this regard at the start of the designing process. Maybe
they focused on different things and simply left it for later, but given
how this requires a solid framework behind, I'm unfortunately more of
the opinion they forgot about it.
I'm talking about complexity by "nested choices", which wasn't called like that, but was more or less like this (not actual quote, but I'm sure I can find the original):
I'm talking about complexity by "nested choices", which wasn't called like that, but was more or less like this (not actual quote, but I'm sure I can find the original):
"You can choose the basic Fighter and you have no choices to make, you just get these bonuses every 2 levels. You want more complexity, then you suddenly have to choose some things at first level and some more things at the other levels, IN PLACE OF the basic bonuses. You want to completely customize everything? Fine, but for adding maneuvers and other complex things, you lose a bit on the "fixed numbers" aspect to compensate your greater flexibility."
- This to me was the
heart of D&D Next, the lesson coming from 4e Essentials, which
demonstrated that you could change between AEDU and... AU, without
making the two choices unbalanced, possibly demonstrating that a lot
more differences could have been put into classes without losing
balance.
Where is this design philosophy now?
I saw it here and there, for example with Signature spells (which are apparently going away), and the fact you can choose Combat Styles or Rogue Schemes, or you can make your own. But i this latter case, there's absolutely no difference. I don't want mechanical reward or disadvantage for complexity/choices, at all, but for example, they could have made the really basic form of the classes devoid of it, adding just fixed numbers or "pseudo maneuvers", showing that you can change the whole thing into the expertise dice mechanic and it's the same class, but with more complexity. A bad example maybe (too much difference), but something similar could have been achieved (a fixed default style/scheme embedded into the class for example).
Anyway, these are just small things. The philosophy entails much more, both in the simplicity direction and the complexity direction.
Where is this design philosophy now?
I saw it here and there, for example with Signature spells (which are apparently going away), and the fact you can choose Combat Styles or Rogue Schemes, or you can make your own. But i this latter case, there's absolutely no difference. I don't want mechanical reward or disadvantage for complexity/choices, at all, but for example, they could have made the really basic form of the classes devoid of it, adding just fixed numbers or "pseudo maneuvers", showing that you can change the whole thing into the expertise dice mechanic and it's the same class, but with more complexity. A bad example maybe (too much difference), but something similar could have been achieved (a fixed default style/scheme embedded into the class for example).
Anyway, these are just small things. The philosophy entails much more, both in the simplicity direction and the complexity direction.
Eventually,
one should be able
to play a "very simple wizard" (perhaps in the form of a re-flavored
Sorcerer/Elementalist..?) or a "very complex fighter", in the same
game.
I hope I'll be able to "remind" the developers of this philosophy with some feedback, because to have this "optional complexity/simplicity", the system must be tailored to support the whole thing.
A game that wanted to succeed in this design philosophy would need to have a really solid math engine under the hood, with enough predictability in outputs to allow you to compare apples to oranges -- how much of a bonus to hit is equivalent to +5 damage? How much expanded critical hit range is equivalent to an effect like the 4E Essentials Knight's defender aura?
ReplyDeleteA game that doesn't really care about pursuing this goal doesn't need to worry about this kind of balance. You can just eyeball it, adjust for feel, and then houserule it into shape and ban splatbooks that aggravate the inherent imbalance.
I agree in part.
ReplyDeleteI agree that balance stems from predictability and "ability to compare apples to oranges" as you well put.
But just as in math you can't perform operations between apples and oranges, balance in D&D can't always be reached with math, although it needs to be the base.
It's part science, part art... It needs lots of common sense, rules of thumb, and compromises, on top of solid math.
About D&D Next in particular, I think design is simply not yet at the point of finding balance. They decided that the first priority was to reacha certain feel. The "artistic part" of the "science and art" thing. It was, politically and economically so to speak, the first priority. But I'm sure balance will become a priority at some point, although as I said, it simply can't be all mathematical, for very practical reasons (too much complexity and diversity, too many "different fruits to be compared").
I didn't get very well your last paragraph, I think.
In my opinion, the designers understand that D&D is the type of game that, for most of the audience, requires some tweaking from the players/DM, so it's better to give a perhaps flawed but tweakable system, than a "perfect but un-tweakable" one, which is only a limit concept, but one that 4e D&D approached at a certain level.
All in all, I think it's still early to judge. I'd just like to remind the developers certain original goals, as I said in the post, which I find functional to the product's success across the widest span of its audience.
I cannot think of a single reason to design for 'feel' first, and then adjust for balance --certainly not if you want to build a game that supports a variety of play styles and serves as a foundation for long-term health and growth of the game. Feel-first design bakes concepts, conceits, and concessions into the core of the game, making deviations from these ideas difficult, frustrating, or even impossible.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm getting at in my second paragraph is that the only reason I can think of to do this sort of thing is if you've decided that the earlier stated goals (optional complexity, core flexibility, long-term growth, etc) are not actually important. The amount of time required to go back and add those things in dwarfs the amount of time to develop the ornamentation that evokes one feel over another, and I will be astounded if the final version of #dndnext is a game that is satisfying to players and GMs for whom reasonable balance is important, or if the core game can stand up to the pressures of splatbooks and optimization.
I wish you luck in your efforts to remind the designers of these goals, but my assessment of the ratio of their budgets for lip service to elbow grease is not encouraging.
What are some 'same-silo' (combat, exploration, interaction) elements that you'd say require less math and more art to balance?
What are some 4E elements that you'd say are, or approach, 'perfect but un-tweakable'?
Starting from the bottom:
ReplyDeleteDesigning custom classes in 3.x was my bread and butter. I eventually became the organizer and one of the judges of the popular (in the official forums) Custom Class Cookie Contest and a lot of awesome material has been made. For 4e? Not even 5% that much. This is part of the "perfect but untweakable". Before Essentials, all classes followed such a controlled scheme, that trying something different felt always like ruining the system. After Essentials a lot less, but then again there were many calls of them being unbalanced, and the "4e grognards" formed, advocating a return to the original framework of early 4e.
Every system that proposes rigid frameworks will inevitably limit variety, just as it (probably, but not surely) will tend towards math balance.
Exploration and Interaction, as you well reminded, are those parts that require more art for sure, because of their very theme. Even for many of 4e's original designers, Skill Challenges practically killed those moments, reducing them to just collection of checks. I'm not saying art excludes science, mind you. One could construct a system with the same kind of balance (if any...) of Skill Challenges, but with completely different mechanics and aesthetics, that will feel much better for the scope.
Example: if an Interaction challenge looks, feels, and plays the same as an Exploration challenge, the game is basically reducing the importance of both things. Why is a Fighter so different from a Wizard? Because the players want them to play differently. Same goes for different types of challenges. Fans of one or more types of challenges want something unique to represent them, resorting to common-place mechanics and sheer numbers perhaps in other types of challenges that they don't like so much. That's why a modular system that lets you add detail to some challenges and not others (or to each and every type or none) is something that 4e never had and I hope D&D Next will have, based on what the designers told us. And again, it's more art than science, because balance in these types of challenges is simply represented by how much can every character contribute even if they are not built for that kind of challenge. And such a thing doesn't need numbers, it needs words.
About the first part of your comment though, I agree with you: it would have been easier to get the mechanical framework right first, and then build the feel. But as I said, political/economical (not "sensu strictu" of course) interests got in the way. For too large a portion of the player base, the very mention of balance as a priority, early on, would have made them look to another game. Instead, 4e fans (perhaps more sportsmanlike) are the types that will always try a new mechanic, maybe rant their years off over it being unbalanced, but by doing so they help the design process. So here you have the priority of feel. Balance can always be tweaked. Feel not so much, and more than that, players looking for a certain feel are more easily lost than players looking for solid mechanics, because mechanics can always be added or modified, while a feel is something directly connected to the identity of a product.
While I do agree that creating an entirely new class in 4E is significantly more work than creating a new class in 3E, that's not because 4E is more rigid, but because (PHB1-style) 4E classes are expected to provide a catalog of AEDU powers. I don't think there's anything about that catalog of powers that demands 'balance', just a lot more legwork.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't describe creating an entirely new (AEDU-style) class in 4E D&D as a tweak for the same reason that I wouldn't describe creating a 3E caster with a unique spell list comprised entirely of new spells as a tweak. Themes (as well as Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies) provide a much more suitable analogue for the sort of 2-page design I imagine when I think about a typical 3E class, but I really don't pay enough attention to custom content creation to know whether many people do anything with them.
My question about balancing same-silo elements against each other was unclear, but let me take a moment to unpack what I do mean, with 4E skill challenges as context.
The problem I've always had with 4E's skill challenges is that there's little room for the sort of 'awesome' that is afforded to players in the combat system. 4E combat is fun largely because the powers system allows the player to decide when they really need to bring it on home with a well-timed daily power, or to build off actions that the rest of the party takes, with emergent gameplay providing many opportunities for 'fastball special' style multi-character combos. The mundane parts of combat -- "OK, I move over here, through the difficult terrain, provoking an attack from the orc" -- largely just happen as prelude for the dramatic action that the player is interested in, whereas the 4E's Skill Challenge rules are just a bunch of d20s tied to mundane action: I bluff. I arcana. I fail to perception. Skill Challenge Is Go.
What I would like to see in a game that really commits to the combat/interaction/exploration pillars is a thorough development and discrete siloing of interaction and exploration "powers". 4E approached this with skill powers and some class utility powers, but most of them just provide bonuses or rerolls or allow skill substitutions, which is largely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The really good ones allow the player to dictate the outcome: When a Warlock uses Rending Fear of Khirad, she gets answers. A thug who wants to intimidate people should have access to the same kind of reliable currency, instead of meticulously accruing bonuses to a roll that he could still fail. Yes, having a collection of shticks can result in degenerate gameplay where people strive to use what works best in situations where it's not appropriate to do so, but removing all reliable conflict resolution tools with the exception of the combat system is just going to push people into combat, as a lot of 4E's critics are happy to point out.
So. Leave the combat abilities in the 'class' container (wizard, warrior, etc). Put the exploration abilities in the 'background' container (scout, soldier, craftsman, scholar, etc). Put the interaction abilities in the 'I-am-struggling-for-a-good-name' container (noble, con man, advisor). Balance within these containers -- you don't need to make sure that a combat choice is equivalent to an exploration choice, just that it's on par with other options in the same silo.
I don't think there's a system level way to balance an option that lets you punch people in the face mo bettah with one that lets you accurately appraise stonework, but there's probably a good way to balance an option that lets you interrogate people with one that lets you lie to people.
All that said:
ReplyDeleteI don't think you and I will ever come to an agreement on whether balance is easier to adjust after the fact than feel, but I don't think they're going to make any serious effort at balancing the game, per today's Q&A:
http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/blog/2012/12/06/dd_next_qa:_racial_stats,_expertise_dice__skills
It strikes me that someone who does not care about balance would be inclined to judge a game that purported to be balanced on whether or not it accomplishes the goals that they do care about, and that only folks with a preference for unbalanced play would reject such a game outright. In a similar vein, it people that do care about balance are likely to reject a game that goes out of its way to avoid even the appearance of being balanced, as #dndnext certainly is.
Actually, I said that I agree with you about balance being harder to adjust after, I just explained why it wasn't being done this easy way...
ReplyDeleteAbout balancing in the same silo, now I got it, I agree but would like to point something out: you say there's a way to balance "an option that lets you interrogate people with one that lets you lie to people." - Sure, but mathematically? Hardly. Here comes the art.
(Now I'll read that Q&A...)
There seems to be a question between descriptions, and if mechanics support it. Isn't it up to the DM (and the books to stress this) to say when they have to make this call, and to have a basic mechanics that can work for this that can but does not always have to be followed (short of sanctioned tournament play like Living scenarios)
ReplyDeleteI'd like to point out that less than a month after this post, Mike Mearls talked about Basic, Standard, and Advanced rules for D&D Next, and how they'd have been compatible for usage at the same table... :) Exactly what I was talking about!!
ReplyDelete